2025 03 13
North of Champaign, Illinois. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
The big takeaway I had last year after my various Illinois Wandering sessions (which were admittedly not very focused and more of an afterthought) was that, while I was making some okay photos of cool scenes, none of the images really stood out as being strong enough to stand on their own. Sure, this image is beautiful (imo) and might work well in a series with other images providing meaning and backstory, but I’d been hoping to make work that would really stand out and be something I would be proud to show others. In reality, I was getting images that felt too pulled back and observational, like a tourist making snaps on the family vacation. I needed to be a part of the action. The images need to feel purposeful, powerful, and spark emotion. This shot is on the right track; it was made as a storm rolled over the plains, powerful to experience firsthand while being there in person, but a subject (a person, ideally) could’ve made it really stand on its own two feet as a strong image.
That’s the trouble with wandering around a rural state alone in your car — the amount of humans you encounter is remarkably small. I continually think of two possible solutions as I’m out on my own: The Crewdson Approach or the Soth Approach.
The obvious solution for a commercial photographer like myself, if wanting to make the strongest images possible, is to produce them like Crewdson does! Put a bunch of money into solving the problem. Get a van, fill it with people and props and a pre-planned road map and go make it happen. The challenge with this approach is that it’s not what drove me to explore my state in the first place. The resulting images may be “better” but any of the meaning I hope to create will be lost.
While it’s ultimately a far more challenging and time consuming approach, the honest, photojournalistic mentality is what’s been driving me to do this. I continually get the feeling while out exploring that I am in a place forgotten by the rest of the world, its time long passed. It’s wanting to document that feeling and emotion for a future audience that drives me to push through and continue exploring this approach to the work, while knowing full-well the strength of the images might suffer and the fine art galleries of New York City may never call.
My cast of characters should be the people who live and work in these places that I encounter, who understand and are at home in them. Pushing myself to get out of my comfort zone in order to access these photographic opportunities is the part that will be most challenging, but I am taking steps in that direction and so far it feels good.
-Clayton
